L’auteur de cet article examine la représentation de l’empereur tibétain Tri Songdétsen (Khri Srong lde brtsan ; 742-env. 800) en tant que roi bodhisattva. Au cours de sa vie, Tri Songdétsen fut représenté en tant qu’empereur, en tant que roi religieux, et peut-être aussi en tant que bodhisattva. Un éloge provincial de l’empereur, inclus dans l’inscription A de Drak Lhamo (Brag lha mo), le décrit également comme tel bodhisattva, aidant ses sujets à emprunter la voie de l’illumination. Un texte de Dunhuang, IOL Tib J 466/3, le mentionne en tant que roi bouddhiste du Tibet, ayant atteint le nirvāṇa. Le document Pelliot tibétain 840/3, quant à lui, propose une synthèse tibétaine de deux éléments indiens à propos du roi tantrique Tsa : la transmission royale du bouddhisme tantrique et le déclin inévitable du Dharma. Ce texte décrit le règne de Tri Songdétsen comme étant l’ « âge d’or » de la pratique tantrique, à partir duquel le tantra tibétain dégénéra ; ce thème du déclin est également présent dans l’injonction (bka’ shog) de Lha Lama Yeshé Ö (Lha bla ma Ye shes ’ od ; 947-1024 / 959-1036 ?). Cet article démontre que le terme bodhisattva, appliqué aux figures royales du Tibet à partir du IXe siècle au moins, est porteur d’une variété de significations, de la période impériale à celle post-impériale.
This article explores the disparity between the Central Tibetan Buddhist doctrines espoused and spread by the Tibetan Empire (Tib. Bod chen po, ca. 7th c. to 842) and those of the multi-ethnic inhabitants of Dunhuang (敦煌) during the same period. It begins with the multi-ethnic background of the Tibetans themselves and how the Tibetan Empire maintained complex relations with those on its borders, as well as their Buddhism(s). It then unpacks the ‘self-presentation’ of Tri Songdétsen’s (742–ca. 800, Tib. Khri Srong lde brtsan) royal discourse (Tib. bka’ mchid) of doctrine and its spread throughout the Tibetan Empire by means of imperial machinery of state administration. The second half of the paper focuses on Tibetan-ruled Dunhuang (perhaps late 750s/early 760s, or 787, to 848) and evidence of the many different beliefs there not contained in Tri Songdétsen’s royal discourse. It looks at the Aparimitāyurnāmasūtra from the perspective not only of content but also of the evidence of scribal practice spread over its many copies from Mogao Cave 17, also known as the Library Cave (Chin. Cangjing dong 藏經洞). This view from the periphery suggests the variety of Buddhist beliefs not explicitly included in the royal discourse, as well as the varying perspectives on how the Tibetan emperors connect with them and some of the ways in which these influenced the margins of the Tibetan Empire after it fell in the mid-ninth century.
This article explores prayer texts written on the first panel of a manuscript whose content links Dunhuang (敦煌) and Central Tibet, IOL Tib J 466. The wider Dunhuang corpus of which this manuscript is part offers scholars a time-capsule from the social and cultural world of first-millennium CE Dunhuang, a melting pot with connections to China, the eastern part of the Silk Road and Tibet. The corpus can also be used, with caution, to compare religious practice there with what we know of Buddhism at the court of the Tibetan emperors in the eighth and ninth centuries especially. One aspect of this is ritual, into which category fall prayer and the related genre of dhāraṇī (Tib. gzungs, Chin. tuoluoni 陀羅尼), and IOL Tib J 466 contains both of these. This article focuses on the first panel of this manuscript, containing invitations to the buddhas of the ten directions, praises to the eight great bodhisattvas and an exemplar of the Uṣnīṣavijayādhāraṇī (Tib. gTsug tor rnam par rgyal ba’i gzungs, Chin. Zunsheng zhou尊勝咒). Analysing these materials within the context of prayer and dhāraṇī literature evidenced in some of the other Tibetan-language documents from Dunhuang and later canonical Tibetan exemplars and references broadens the description of ritual traditions in the Tibetan imperial (ca. 600–850) and early post-imperial period and within Tibeto-Chinese Buddhist communities in Dunhuang during and after Tibetan imperial control over the region (up to 848).
Kingship has been an important and contested element of realpolitik and rhetoric since the beginnings of Buddhism. Siddhārtha Gautama (fl. c. fifth century bce) is said to have been born a prince augured to either conquer or renounce the world, who chose the latter path. Those who follow the Buddha’s example in “going forth” (Skt. niṣkrāmati) from the world, join the monastic sangha and are then (theoretically) subject only to monastic law (Skt. vinaya) rather than state jurisdiction or its tax obligation. Yet, this “going forth” takes place within a society on which the sangha is largely dependent for donations, in return for which householders gain religious merit (Skt. puṇya). This means that social support, from householders up to kings or emperors, is often negotiated within Buddhism, whether symbolically or in practice. This situation created a rich diversity of approaches to kings (whether seen as positive protectors of the dharma, negative causes of Buddhist decline, or a mixture of the two) that often expanded into ideal types, reached cosmic proportions, and affected real sangha-ruler relations (even to such extremes as Buddhist literature sanctioning either royal deification or regicide). Rulers down the millennia donated land to the sangha, and the important role of building stupas, temples, and monasteries (less often, nunneries) in the countries where Buddhism spread often announced Buddhism as a (if not the) state religion and a (re)new(ed) part of the landscape. Royal patronage was behind many countries’ voluminous Buddhist canons, containing foundational conceptions of kingship, and the scriptoria and repositories necessary for their survival. The status of state religion cuts both ways though, and monarchs were often legitimized by Buddhism or controlled it, at times even persecuted it. Some rulers were ordained as monks or nuns, either after abdicating or during their reigns, while certain monastics ruled regions or countries—further blurring the boundaries between the world and “going forth” from it. Buddhist kingship ideals also influenced modern states and either merged or conflicted with other societal or international values. This often led to a bureaucratic or ideological distancing of the state from Buddhist kingship metaphors, unless embracing them served national identity. This entry is divided into sub-entries on Early Buddhism, then “Southern” (toward the Theravāda), “Eastern” (mostly Mahayana) and “Northern” (predominantly tantric) Buddhist countries. Yet, traditions can persist (unacknowledged) within later, more popular movements, and geographic typologies collapse at various meeting points and times in Buddhist Asia.
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